A Sorority of Sisters Who Love Tea

The third day of Christmas has been a very meaningful day for me this year, as it was the day that I’ve been busy with these past couple of months. For two swaps that I was involved with (12 days of Christmas swaps) the day that was chosen for me was day 3. Three French Hens.

The first swap I was involved in was one I facilitated on Steepster. It was a tea swap, and each participant needed was assigned a day from the song, and they needed to come up with a tea to send out to each of the other participants … and their tea choice needed to be inspired by the lyrics of the song … that is to say, they needed to choose a tea that was inspired by the day that they were assigned. I needed to choose a tea that said “Three French Hens.” Instead, I chose three teas that were somewhat French-like, and presented them in a large egg. Three French teas that were laid by French Hens. At least that was the message I was trying to express with my swap. Hopefully it made sense to the other participants.

If I happen to glance at the “French Hens” sort of carelessly and quickly, I instead read French Horns. Then I think of “How I Met Your Mother” and the blue French Horn that Ted pilfered from the restaurant where he took Robin on their first date. Maybe for my contribution for the 12 Days of Christmas art swap I took part in I should have done something French Horn inspired. Instead, I made Smash Books. I hope that everyone liked them.

So… without further babbling, I present the tea that Della Terra Teas sent me for the Third Day of Christmas:

I’ve stated many times that rooibos just isn’t my favorite thing. But, I do drink rooibos, pretty regularly, in fact, and so I guess I should stop saying that. While it is true that they aren’t my favorite, I don’t really dislike most of the rooibos blends that I try. In fact, the majority of the ones that I’ve tried over the course of the last couple of years, I’ve enjoyed … some more than others, but for the most part, I’ve enjoyed most of the rooibos blends I’ve tried. So I really DO need to quit saying I don’t like rooibos, because there’s quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

This rooibos blend is pretty darned good. The description above is correct, this rooibos blend actually tastes creamy. But I don’t agree that this should be called “Gingerbread Man.” I just am not getting a whole lot of anything here that makes me think “Oh … this is Gingerbread!” It’s tasty, and that’s a good thing, but, it’s not really gingerbread to me.

I’m liking that that this is sweet without that “funky sweetness” that I sometimes get from rooibos. I taste a somewhat nutty flavor from the rooibos, and this contributes to the overall freshly baked cake kind of taste … but there really needs to be more ginger for this to be something I’d be able to say “oh yeah, that’s gingerbread alright.” I’m just not getting much ginger at all here.

What I do taste is the aforementioned creamy tone, notes of nutty flavor from the rooibos, as well as pineapple. I taste more pineapple here than I do ginger. Perhaps we could rename the Gingerbread Man to Pineapple Bread Man.

Now I’m being silly. That’s what happens when I start drinking tisane too late at night.

It is sweet, creamy and I taste very subtle spice notes, hints of ginger and of cinnamon. And from the currants, I get just a hint of a berry tartness toward the tail end of the sip.

Overall, it’s really kind of an odd – as in unusual – tisane, but, I am finding it really tasty, even if it doesn’t live up to what I would expect from something called “Gingerbread Man,” and I’m really glad I tried it.

Anne (LiberTEAS) is a stay-at-home mom living in the Pacific Northwest.She recently "retired" from writing reviews here at SororiTea Sisters so that she could take over at 52Teas but she's still an active presence here at SororiTea Sisters, acting as the Administrator of the blog.

About the author

Anne (LiberTEAS) is a stay-at-home mom living in the Pacific Northwest. She recently "retired" from writing reviews here at SororiTea Sisters so that she could take over at 52Teas but she's still an active presence here at SororiTea Sisters, acting as the Administrator of the blog.

3 comments

We didn’t need to create the teas, but the swap asked that we choose teas that would be inspired by the lyrics of the song. I had Three French Hens. So, I chose three French teas: 1) French Canadian Maple Tea from Tealicious Tea Co; 2) Cafe Vanilla from Della Terra teas; and 3) French Blend from New Mexico Tea Co.

For the “hen” portion of the song, I packaged these three teas into sample bags, and then put the sample bags into large sized plastic eggs.